A blog and event series led by Professors David Schanzer
and Don Taylor at Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy

Friday, September 17, 2010

Gridlock is good?

Yesterday's initial meeting with students interested in this effort was fun. Personally, I hope that we are starting something that will soon be far out of our control: students and the entire campus looking for ways to address the large problems facing our nation and not accepting that it is impossible to address the big issues.

David Schanzer noted yesterday that some will say 'gridlock is good' because they believe that gridlock will prevent government from getting too large. Here is a news story with Sen. DeMint (R-SC) echoing some of these notions.

There is a view expressed by business leaders in the story that gridlock will keep taxes from going up. I completely respect an argument for lower taxes....so long as the proponents say what spending they will forgo. Over long periods of time we need a budget that is in balance. This means the ins (taxes) match the outs (spending).

If you are for expanding government, you need to say where the taxes will come from and what the effects will be. If you are for limited government, you need to say what spending you will forego, and what the effects will be.

1 comment:

Jim DeMint might think gridlock is good so new expansions of government can be frustrated. But he will also find that it can also frustrate conservatives' ability to trim back the current operations of government. For example, President Bush's effort to partially privatize social security went nowhere.